W MAGAZINE: For W’s second annual TV Portfolio, we asked 26 of the most sought-after names in television to pay homage to their favorite small-screen characters by stepping into their shoes.
WandaVision was the first television show produced by Marvel Studios, and any gamble Disney+ took to make the series happen immediately paid off. At one point during its nine-episode run, WandaVision was the most popular streamed show in the world (beaten only recently by another Marvel series, Loki). The suburbia-set series received critical acclaim, snagging 23 Emmy nominations—one of those for Elizabeth Olsen, who was nominated for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for her performance as the titular Wanda—and convinced even the biggest Marvel skeptics to buy into its delicious plot.
It might come as a surprise, then, that Olsen doesn’t really watch that much contemporary television herself. But who could blame the actress, when most of her time is spent filming scenes for the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Wanda Maximoff (also known as the Scarlet Witch), a wielder of chaos magic who materializes in the small town of Westview—first as a 1950s-era housewife married to a humanlike robot named Vision (played by Paul Bettany), then as a ’60s housewife, then a ’70s housewife, and so on. When the actress does watch television, though, she prefers to get into some of those older shows, like Murder, She Wrote, which she chose to re-create above, and, of course, episodes of ’90s sitcoms like Full House, of which there was no dearth in the actress’s childhood.
How did WandaVision come to you? You had already played the character Wanda Maximoff in the Avengers films, but WandaVision was a whole other ball game.
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VARIETY: Neither Elizabeth Olsen nor Jurnee Smollett are strangers to having to really stretch their imaginations to dive into complex characters and even more complicated worlds.
Both have superhero films on their résumés: Smollett portrayed Black Canary in DC’s “Birds of Prey,” while Olsen stepped into Wanda Maximoff aka the Scarlet Witch’s shoes for Marvel’s “Avengers” franchise and then some — including Disney Plus’ first Marvel series, “WandaVision.” They are both now Emmy-nominated for projects that tasked them with jumping through time, blending genres and telling epic love stories (Olsen with “WandaVision,” Smollett with HBO’s “Lovecraft Country”). And, even though they are up in different categories (Olsen in lead limited series/TV movie actress; Smollett in lead drama actress), both of these shows are one-season wonders, leaving the performers and their audiences wanting more.
Olsen and Smollett dissected all that of when Variety brought them together post-nominations to talk about their celebrated roles and surreal playgrounds.
You both had a lot of magical or otherwise surreal elements to interact with on your shows. What did you actually have in front of you to react to on set?
Jurnee Smollett: We were very fortunate on “Lovecraft Country” because the whole VFX team worked so hard to create an atmosphere that was also practical in our space. I remember on Episode 3, the exorcism scene, we shot it over a course of three days and, while there was not a man in real life with a baby head on him, you’ve got the wind machines and the pictures are blowing and all the special effects makeup is being touched up. Atticus [Jonathan Majors] has pretty much turned into a rabid dog and I’m doing this spell with my ancestors and whether they were shooting behind us or shooting the elements, we were at our max capacity regardless because that’s just how we approach the craft. It was such a big sequence to shoot that that’s when the actor in you has to advocate for your instrument. I did go to the director and say, “Can you jump in and cross shoot Jonathan and I?” As an actor it is our job to shoot however many takes, however many angles you need, but then it is also our job to advocate for yourselves. And I love playing in this space because you get to use your imagination you get to go to crazy places. Because even while the practical elements are there; you get to go to crazy places. But I was grateful for the practical elements because it’s just so much easier.
Elizabeth Olsen: Did they have pre-viz so you knew what some of the supernatural elements looked like?
Smollett: With the Shoggoths they not only had a pre-viz for us, but for some of the scenes they had massive sculptures, like a dude standing there in a green suit with a Shoggoth head. The pilot we didn’t have this puppet, but by Episode 8, maybe we got more of a budget or something, but eventually we did get a puppet — which was really cool because you could see, “This is the moment his mouth is opening.” But also, Misha [Green], our showrunner, she just wants more blood, more dirt. She’d try to get them to blow spittle at us.
Olsen: That’s so gross!
Deadline Contenders Television: The Nominees – Saturday, August 14 and Sunday, August 15
Thanks to superfly-sis7a for sending me the scans from Instyle MX!
Since the UHD/4K movies are now all available, I have upgraded the caps in the gallery. WandaVision was already UHD/4K but I did upgrade the Assembled to 1080p instead of 720p so they are better quality too. I also added some promo pics and stills to the WandaVision section. Enjoy!!
MARVEL CINEMA UNIVERSE PROJECTS > CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (2014) > UHD/4K SCREENCAPSMARVEL CINEMA UNIVERSE PROJECTS > AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (2015) > UHD/4K SCREENCAPS
MARVEL CINEMA UNIVERSE PROJECTS > CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR (2016) > UHD/4K SCREENCAPS
MARVEL CINEMA UNIVERSE PROJECTS > AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (2018) > UHD/4K SCREENCAPS
MARVEL CINEMA UNIVERSE PROJECTS > AVENGERS: ENDGAME (2019) > UHD/4K SCREENCAPS
MARVEL CINEMA UNIVERSE PROJECTS > WANDAVISION (2021) > SEASON 1 > posters
MARVEL CINEMA UNIVERSE PROJECTS > WANDAVISION (2021) > SEASON 1 > poster – assembled
MARVEL CINEMA UNIVERSE PROJECTS > WANDAVISION (2021) > SEASON 1 > still – assembled
MARVEL CINEMA UNIVERSE PROJECTS > WANDAVISION (2021) > SEASON 1 > poster – assembled
MARVEL CINEMA UNIVERSE PROJECTS > WANDAVISION (2021) > SEASON 1 > for your considseration -emmy 2021
MARVEL CINEMA UNIVERSE PROJECTS > WANDAVISION (2021) > SEASON 1 > EPISODE STILLS > 1.08 “previously on” stills
MARVEL CINEMA UNIVERSE PROJECTS > WANDAVISION (2021) > SEASON 1 > EPISODE STILLS > 1.09 “the series finale” stills
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